161 highly innovative SMEs funded by Horizon 2020 SME Instrument

Published on Monday, 11/05/2015

161 companies from 23 countries have been selected in the latest round of Horizon 2020 SME Instrument Phase 1. For each project, the participants will receive €50,000 to finance feasibility studies. They can also request up to three days of business coaching.

The European Commission received 1,569 proposals under Phase 1 by the first cut-off date of 2015 on 18 March. 251 received an evaluation score above the application threshold and 151 or 60.1% have been selected for funding.
Spanish SMEs have again been particularly successful with 34 beneficiaries accepted for funding, followed by firms from Italy (25) and the UK (18). Since the launch of the programme on 1st January 2014, 816 SMEs have been selected under Phase 1 of the SME instrument.

SME Instrument beneficiaries: FABPulous B.V.

FABPulous is a SME based in The Netherlands which was spun out of Maastricht University at the end of 2008, which will receive €1.6 m. from the European Union under Horizon 2020 SME Instrument programme to develop the Rapidex project.

Thanks to its researching FABPulous has developed a rapid test for the cardiac biomarker so called heart-type fatty acid binding protein (H-FABP), to aid in the first-line diagnosis of acute myocardial infarction (AMI) commonly known as a heart attack.
"It is able to distinguish patients who would have a heart attack to those wouldn't have it. So a test like this could be identified those disinclined patients and send them home in three hours which is a big achievement", states Mr. Conor O'Brien, Managing Director of FABPulous.
This offers great advantages in the point-of-care and home testing setting, over current technology. Also it will help to relieve Emergency department overcrowding in Europe since "at the moment about 1 in 5 patients who seek medical attention with chest pain have a confirmed acute myocardial infarction but they have treat all of them", points O'Brien.
For this company H2020 SME Instrument programme helps in generating critical evidences in this medical concern and boosts clinical research for the validation of biomarkers and/or diagnostic medical devices.

Consumers likely to save thanks to annual energy costs indicator

The Yearly Appliance Energy Cost Indication (YAECI) has been helping consumers in their purchasing decisions by displaying the yearly average running costs of domestic appliances and TVs on web-shops and by retailers in 9 EU countries.
“Consumers can now make better informed decisions when purchasing energy efficient appliances” highlights Rebecca van Leeuwen, coordinator of the project from the Netherlands Enterprise Agency. The Energy Indicator of a product shows the customer that even if a product is initially somewhat more expensive, it can in fact work out to be cheaper in the long-run, thanks to the lower annual running costs.
YAECI provides customers with information at the point of sale, specifically, on the yearly energy cost of a product i.e., Energy Indicator. This comes together with the existing energy label found in appliances such as washing machines, dishwashers, dryers, air-conditioners and televisions.
This three-year project co-financed by the European Intelligent Energy Europe (IEE) programme was successfully completed and came to an end recently. Retailers and consumers wishing to learn more about the project and results can visit the YAECI website where the final YAECI report is now available for download.